Voice Separation - Importance of Head Turns/Positioning Strategies

William J. Campbell M.S.  Audiologist

Understanding everyday speech in reverberant environments mixed with background noise requires balanced normal hearing. The more closely the right and left ears are in terms of their pick-up patterns, the easier it will be to separate multiple voices coming from different directions.

Hearing impairment affecting only a single ear can result in direction-specific-errors.

Pitch and timing information are critical in our ability to listen in background noise.

When attention is divided between group participants, there are fewer resources available  to track each voice.

Competing voices with similar gender, particularly, have the potential to distort message reception.

The difficulty is more evident with age.

One easy way of dealing with hearing loss and age related attention issues is through the use of head turns.  By turning your head in the proper direction, you can increase understanding as much as 30 to 60%.  Another, almost intuitive strategy is to walk closer to the speech source. This body positioning increases the level of speech relative to surrounding noise, and enhances lipreading cues.  The total effect on speech perception can be dramatic.

The take home message:  maximize wanted speech and minimize noise.  Keep distances appropriate, face the person you are listening to, turn off the water in the sink and/or wait until the microwave oven has finished its cycle before talking to your loved one. Visit an audiologist trained in such matters to determine if there are hearing-aid related ways of improving your performance.  Some of the newer digital aids are very good at increasing speech and reducing background compared to those of yester_ ear!! 

The importance of attention and memory skills cannot be underestimated in the total  communication process.  Age is a key factor in all of this.  Maintain a healthy lifestyle including diet.

Suggested Readings

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 120, No.5, November 2006,  pp  2926-2937

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 122, No. 3, September 2007, p1713-1723;1724-1734

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 122, No. 5, November 2007, pp 2814-2825; pp EL 143-150

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 123, No. 4, April 2008, pp 2237-2248

Appetite, February 2009

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 125, No. 6, June 2009, 4006-4022

Journal of Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 127, No. 3, March 2010, 1440-1449